Fat White Vampire Blues

by Andrew J. Fox

  “Nice place you’ve got here,” he mumbled.

  “Thanks,” she answered, barely looking at him. “So what’s the story with this disease? And how did you know Malik is a bloodsucker?”

  Jules smiled weakly and shrugged his shoulders. “I’m just the assistant. We gotta wait for Dr. Richelieu. He, uh,she’s the expert.”

  “Fine.” She looked at him with more interest. Did her eyes flare with a glimmer of recognition, or was this just his jumpy imagination acting up again?

  Whatever the look was, it made him uncomfortable. He took a few steps toward one of the couches.

  The leather-swathed cushions looked soft and inviting. “Mind if I sit down?”

  She pulled one of the hard-backed oak chairs away from the dining table for him. “Not at all.”

  Doodlebug came through the front door. “Sorry to keep everyone waiting. Did I miss anything?”

  “I’m not sure I can be of much help, Doctor,” the woman said. “Me and Malik… we ain’t what you’d call close. I ain’t seen him in a long time. Maybe five, six years.“

  “Do you have any idea where we might find him?”

  “Oh, I hear he still be around town somewhere. Here and there. He never did stay in one place very long. Time comes to dust the apartment, he just moves on to a fresh one.“

  “Do you have friends in common? Any relations who might know how we could get in touch?”

  “Before I put you in touch with other folks to bug in the middle of the night, how about tellin‘ me some more about this disease?“

  Doodlebug sat down at the table and folded his hands together thoughtfully. “It’s a degenerative bone disease. Very painful. It leads to weak, easily fractured bones and can’t be reversed once it passes a certain stage. During the early, reversible stages, no symptoms are apparent; the disease can only be detected through a special blood test of my own devising.“

  Elisha Raddeaux looked less than fully convinced. “And how does one catch this nasty bone disease?”

  “By ingesting the blood of an HIV-positive individual or a carrier of the hepatitis C virus.”

  “I see.” She stared long and hard, first at Jules, then at Doodlebug. “Look, I’ll do my best to help you. There’s no love lost between me and my brother. I sure don’t approve of what he is and some of the things he done. But I figure nobody deserves to be sufferin‘ with no disease. Give me some time to think, and maybe I can come up with somethin’ for you two to go on. In the meantime, can I get you anything? I got some crumb cake, and I can make a pot of coffee.”

  Jules’s face lit up. “Hey, thanks! Some coffee’d begreat. I’ll pass on that crumb cake, though.”

  “Anything for you, Doctor?”

  Doodlebug smiled and shook his head. “Oh, no, thank you. I ate just before we came over.”

  She stood from the table and headed for the kitchen. “It’ll be a few minutes. I got one of them old-fashioned percolators that takes a while to get goin‘.” She closed the kitchen door behind her.

  Jules gave Doodlebug the thumbs-up sign. “Hey, pal,” he whispered, “that’s some great bullshit story you came up with. Bone disease…yeeuuch! So, whadda ya think? She on the level? You think she’s gonna help us out?”

  Doodlebug eyed the kitchen door pensively. “I’m not sure. Something seems off. Her body language didn’t match her conversation-”

  From the far side of the door Jules heard the distinctive tones of a push-button phone’s keys being pressed. “Shit! She’s makin‘ a call! She’s rattin’ us out!”

  He started to get up from the table, but Doodlebug caught his arm. “Don’t worry about that.” The slender vampire grinned. “While I was outside, I took a little precaution. She won’t be getting through to anyone until after South Central Bell makes a service call.”

  Jules overheard a soft expletive in the kitchen, followed by more button pushing, followed by still more, and stronger, profanity.

  “Guess this means I won’t be gettin‘ my coffee,” Jules said wistfully.

  He jumped as there was a loud crash in the kitchen. Now hedid get up from the table. “Hey! You, uh, you okay in there?“

  “I’m fine,” the woman’s voice answered, a little too strongly. “Just had a little accident. No problem.”

  “You need a hand with somethin‘?”

  “No!I’m justfine! Don’t you concern yourself none.”

  Jules looked uncertainly at his companion. His resolve hardened. He went to the door and opened it.

  “Die-ie, you fat fuckah!”

  She charged him like an enraged lioness, slashing wildly with jagged wooden pieces from a broken bar stool. He dodged as best he could. But one of her improvised stakes connected with an ample love handle, shredding his new safari suit and taking a decent-sized chunk of him with it.

  “Ahhh!You fuckin‘bitch!”

  The other stake gouged his cheek, leaving a bloody trail. He tried grabbing her, but she was astoundingly fast and strong. She shrugged off his bear hug as if he were made of tinfoil, bouncing him into the dining room wall and spilling him heavily to the floor.

  Then she whirled on Doodlebug. What happened next occurred almost too quickly for Jules’s pain-clouded eyes to follow. Doodlebug moved like a ninja from a Bruce Lee flick. First his foot crashed into her wrist, sending a stake flying. She thrust her other dagger at his chest. He ducked low and bent her weapon arm sharply over his shoulder. Jules heard a sharp break and an even sharper scream. Then Doodlebug became a blur of motion. His whirling kick exploded against the side of her head and sent her flying against the dining room wall.

  She still wasn’t down for the count. Jules struggled to clear his vision. His side burned like hell. He looked down-his left side, from mid-rib cage down, was drenched with blood. Weirdly, the front of his safari suit was stained with brown smudges. He rubbed one of the smudges. Some of the brown came off on his finger; oily, like wet paint. Makeup. It was makeup.

  “Jules! I need some help here! I can’t hold her much longer!”

  “Youfucks!” she screamed. “You won’t get away withnothin‘! I’ll kill you! Fuck youboth up!”

  Jules stared at Malice X’s sister. Most of the makeup on her arms had rubbed off during their brief struggle. Her exposed skin was deathly gray.

  She was a vampire.

  “Jules! Snap out of it! Or do you want to have to fight her all over again?”

  She was a vampire, just like he was. He struggled to get up from the floor. She writhed and thrashed in

  Doodlebug’s tight grasp, trapped in his arms like a live electrical wire. A vampire.

  “Jules! Grab one of those stakes she dropped! Run her through before she breaks away!”

  He felt like he was moving in slow motion. Like he was swimming through cream of mushroom soup. He leaned down and picked one of the stakes off the floor. She spat at him. He could see her fangs very clearly as she pulled her lips back to curse and hiss.

  “Jules! Comeon! Get with the program!”

  He stared at the stake in his hand. “I–I just can’t do it.”

  His friend looked incredulous. “What?What’s the problem? You’ve killedhundreds of people before!”

  “Yeah, but… but they wasfood.” An inner voice screamed at him that he was being ridiculous-he and his friend were in danger. Any squeamishness didn’t count for a bag of beans. But voice or no voice, he couldn’t make his hand move. “This here-this isdifferent — I mean, she, y’know, she’s one ofus.”

  “This is onehell of a time to develop moral qualms!”

  The struggling woman kicked viciously at Jules. She barely missed knocking the stake from his loosening fist. “Iknow — I’msorry — but I just can’t do it.”

  Doodlebug’s sigh sounded like steam boiling from a braking locomotive. “Ohh-kay-anyother bright ideas about what to do with our charming hostess here would begreatly appreciated!”

  Jules gulped hard. He felt horrible. He was useless. Wor
se than useless. “We could stuff her in her coffin. It’s gotta be around here someplace.”

  “Well,find it, then! And hurry!”

  He ran through her kitchen, stepping quickly over the broken remains of the bar stool, and peered into what looked to be a bedroom. “D.B.! It’s here! A big mahogany coffin!”

  He ran back to the dining room to help his friend half drag, half carry the shrieking, thrashing woman to the room behind the kitchen. Jules was suddenly grateful she’d chosen to live in this crappy neighborhood; none of the neighbors would pay a bout of crazed screaming any mind. He shoved the coffin’s lid open with his foot, then he and Doodlebug forcibly stuffed her inside. As soon as Jules was able to slam the lid shut, he lay on top of it and hung on for dear life.

  “Guess I’m the heaviest thing in the house. Look, I’m really sorry about before-”

  “We’ll talk about it later,” Doodlebug said, breathing heavily. “Right now we’ve got to find some way of keeping that coffin shut tight. You can’t lie on top of it ad infinitum.”

  Jules’s stomach bounced as the coffin rocked. Elisha actually managed to lift the lid and its massive passenger an inch or two, but the coffin’s tight confinement left her no real leverage. “See if you can find some rope or wire,” Jules said. “Maybe a hammer and nails. She’s got some kinda utility shed out back.”

  Doodlebug smoothed stray strands of lustrous auburn hair away from his face. “You’ll be all right?”

  Jules smiled ruefully. “Sure. First time my weight’s ever done me any good.”

  He watched Doodlebug unlock the rear entrance and step into the backyard. After a minute or two, the coffin stopped rocking beneath him. Jules cautiously sat up straight, still keeping his full weight centered on the lid. Then he heard his captive begin to sob. Softly at first, then louder and with greater abandon. It was one of the saddest, most pathetic sounds he’d ever heard.

  “Oh Malice,Malice — I donefailed you! I donefailed you, honey dearest…”

  What kind of a brother would turn his own sister into a vampire? Jules’s already abysmal opinion of his enemy plunged even lower, if that were possible. He tried not to listen to Elisha’s agonized cries and moanings. The things she was saying… things no sister should ever say or eventhink about a brother. Did Maureen have even the slightest notion of the depraved creature she’d granted vampiric powers and immortality to? The kind of creature she’d shared her bed with?

  Doodlebug returned with rope, hammer, and nails. Jules continued sitting on the coffin while his companion drove a score of three-inch nails through the lid and into the coffin’s walls. Then Jules lifted the coffin, one end at a time, while Doodlebug wrapped it tightly with thick nylon rope.

  “There… we shouldn’t have to worry abouther for a while,” Doodlebug said, patting his forehead and neck with a handkerchief from his purse. He glanced at Jules’s blood-soaked side, his eyes brimming with concern. “Let’s take a look at that. Is the wound deep?”

  Jules gingerly pulled the shreds of his safari jacket and shirt away from his wounded left side. He winced as the fabric, glued to his wound by drying blood, tore open newly formed scabs. Jules kept his eyes tightly shut, afraid to look at his own blood.

  “It’s not too awful,” he heard Doodlebug say. “She didn’t tag you that badly. It’s already healing.”

  Jules opened his eyes. Now that the scraps of clothing were out of the wound, it was free to close properly. He watched, fascinated and a little nauseated, as his violated skin almost magically reknit itself.

  “I saw some interesting things out back,” his relieved friend said. “You need to come take a look yourself.”

  He followed Doodlebug out to the storage shed, a large corrugated metal structure that took up most of the backyard. His friend had torn off the door lock. Jules had no idea what to expect when Doodlebug yanked the light string. What was revealed was way,way down the list of what he might’ve imagined.

  It was a lab of some kind. Bunsen burners and beakers and glass tubing, the sort of stuff Doc Landrieu might play with. Plus a bank of filing cabinets and three humming refrigerators.

  Jules was mystified. “What kinda place is this?”

  “It’s a drug lab. A heroin processing lab, to be exact.”

  “Heroin?What the heck do a buncha vampires need to fuck around withheroin for?”

  “Good question. Let’s try to find out, shall we?”

  They spent the next twenty minutes rummaging through the contents of filing cabinets, ledgers, and hand-scrawled notes scattered around the lab. Most of the paperwork dealt with the supply trail and distribution network of a hot new commodity called Horse-X.

  Jules broke open the locked bottom drawer of the last of the filing cabinets. He pulled a thick black three-ring binder from the back of the drawer. Almost immediately he knew he’d struck pay dirt. It was a manual describing the care and feeding of a long list of priority clients.

  He flipped through the pages. Some of the names slapped him in the face like a bucketful of ice water. “Holy shit! Iknow these people! Knowof ‘em, anyway… Some of these guys are high up in the police department. You got lawyers here who made millions workin’ all them casino deals. Whoa-ho!You got names here that belong to hizzoner the mayor’s top politicos.”

  He handed the binder to Doodlebug. The younger vampire spent a few minutes reading intently. “This is bigger than we ever imagined. It seems your friend Malice has his tentacles in nearly every corner of the city.”

  “Yeah… Horse-X: It’s not just fer the ghetto anymore.”

  Doodlebug closed the binder. “It’s not safe for us to stay here much longer. I’m sure this is a very active little lab. Ms. Raddeaux’s partners could show at any moment. Let’s gather up what we can and beat a prudent retreat.”

  They searched for any document that might list a physical address for Malice X, but their hurried survey only turned up the names of lower-level operatives and a series of post office boxes. Jules retrieved a pair of old D. H. Holmes shopping bags from the house, and they stuffed a generous sampling of binders and folders into the bags, including the revelatory black binder.

  Back in the house, Jules grabbed utility bills, photo albums, a shoe box full of canceled checks-anything that could potentially provide them with Malice’s connections or current whereabouts. A set of matching coasters next to the drying rack in the kitchen caught his eye. He’d seen them all around the house, but he hadn’t paid them any mind until now. They were all from the same Central City neighborhood bar. Club Hit ‘N’ Run.

  He stuffed one of the coasters into his pocket. When Doodlebug came into the kitchen carrying a very full D. H. Holmes bag, Jules tossed him one of the drink holders. “Here’s where we need to head next, pal. Seems like this joint is a popular hangout with Sistah Souljah in the coffin there. Maybe it’s a popular hangout with Brotha Bas-turd, too.”

  Doodlebug read the name of the club. He looked up at his partner, and his fire-engine-red lips puckered into a half frown. “Not so fast, Mr. Hooded Terror. Your performance tonight wasn’t exactly what I’d call confidence-inspiring. I think we have a little work to do before we attempt to beard this lion in his lair.”

  Jules thought about arguing. Then he looked down at his blood-splattered clothes, scowled, and clamped his jaw tightly shut.

  Doodlebug scooted him toward the front door. “Earlier tonight you sent me back to high school. I had such afabulous time. Well, my friend, now it’syour turn to go back to school. Vampire University, in fact. And I just happen to be dean.”

  THIRTEEN

  “Are you ready for a major surprise?”

  Jules rolled his eyes to the ceiling. “Right now, the only thing that’s surprisin‘ me is that we’re sittin’ on our asses in your cottage instead of stakin‘ out the Hit ’N‘ Run Club. What’s all this bullshit about you teachin’ me to be a better vampire? Kid, I was an A-One vampire when yourmama was in diapers, much lessyou.”

&nb
sp; Doodlebug smiled. “The only ignorant man is he who refuses to learn, grasshopper. Now change into a wolf. I have something very important to show you.”

  Jules grumbled. Then he reminded himself that his embarrassing failure of nerve at Elisha Raddeaux’s had nearly gotten Doodlebug’s arms wrenched from their sockets. Maybe he owed his friend a little indulgence. He started unbuttoning his jacket, then stopped. “Hey, this isn’t some kinda trick you’re pullin‘ to get me naked, is it?”

  Doodlebug snorted. “Don’t flatter yourself. I dress like a woman, but that doesn’t mean you’re my type.”

  Reassured, Jules stripped off his safari suit, shoes, and underwear. He concentrated on the full moon, Lon Chaney Jr., and lots and lots of hair. At least his transformations were coming more easily now. They still made his bones and joints ache, but that was nothing new; five decades of ever-increasing obesity had left him achingly familiar with aching bones and joints.

  The universe shifted around him. The visual world turned black and white, like the picture on an old Philco TV, whereas the sensitivity of his ears and nose jumped a hundredfold. His long gray nose twitched; Doodlebug was wearing a pungently vile perfume, a witches’ brew of citrus extracts and boar musk. Jules sneezed violently, three times in quick succession.

  “Jules? Can you understand what I’m saying? If you can understand me, scratch the floor twice with your right paw.”

  He really wished Doodlebug would stop screaming. But he complied, thumping the polished floor twice with the thick black pads of his right front paw.